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Homeschooling With Charlotte Mason

After watching my two oldest girls struggle with public school due to boredom and friction with “the cool kids,” I decided to home school my three youngest. It was an easy decision, but creating my own curriculum was often confusing. I didn’t want to use the traditional Christian home school programs such as Alpha Omega, Abeka and others. Aside from the fact that they’re quite costly and need to be purchased for each grade, I found them to be more stringent than what I was looking for. While doing some research on homeschooling programs, I came upon the Charlotte Mason … Continue reading →

Homeschool Word of the Day: Strewing

Strewing means scattering, or dispersing haphazardly. In homeschooling, to strew is to leave education books, materials, and games lying about in the child’s path. Strewing is a word used by unschoolers. While unschoolers allow their children to follow their own paths, many do manage to direct the kids a bit with strategic placement of learning materials. Sandra Dodd, who coined the term, explains this practice well on her website. She explains, “Some of our most successful items have been toys or objects for playing with (sometimes not purely a toy) like pattern blocks, castle blocks, magnets (or some new magnet … Continue reading →

Homeschool Parents in Germany Still Fighting Nazi Laws

“The ‘Schulpflicht’ – the laws that require school attendance – are on the books in the German states, and have been traced back to the ‘Reichsschulpflicht Gesetz’ [federal compulsory attendance laws] which was passed in 1938. Except for the removal of references to the Nazi party, these laws are identical or substantially the same as the laws passed by Hitler’s government, criminalizing parents who keep their children home for school.” This is what the parents Juergen and Rosemarie Dudeck of Archfeld Germany have alleged in court in their fight to homeschool their children. To date they have been wholly unsuccessful … Continue reading →

Why Drama is Important in Homeschooling

As I mentioned in the last homeschool blog post, Carnival of Educators -Drama Club Edition, I am in the middle of tech week for my kids Drama Club which is an extention of their once a week homeschool program. As a quick refresher, my kids attend Artios Academies which is a once a week homeschool program where kids learn about a different time period each year through the arts. (This post explains the program in more detail. You may notice there was a name change for the “school” my kids attend.) They study visual art, music, drama, dance, etc, of … Continue reading →

Hard to Find Homeschool Resource: High School Science

Teaching high school science to homeschoolers can be a bit intimidating. Even for parents who are comfortable with biology, chemistry, and physics, recreating the lab experience at home can be daunting. Here are some resources you can use to teach high school science. If you want a no-muss, no-fuss outline for high school science, Glencoe.com has great online resources meant to be used in conjunction with their textbooks, but they are also great for stand alone study. High school ace also serves as a great outline, complete with numerous links to useful sites that help you teach and demonstrate science … Continue reading →

Video Based Instruction Ideas

My 13 year old has decided that if the curriculum is not video based she does not want to be bothered with it. Over the years I guess I have spoiled her with internet based animation type curriculum like that at Time4learning, and Brainpop cartoons, and math programs like Khan Academy, but her decision to forgo all other forms of curriculum to just watch videos caught me off guard. It’s not that she doesn’t like to read. She reads at least 100 pages a day and carries a book with her where ever she goes. When we were enjoying California … Continue reading →

Homeschool Question: Ideas for an Independent 13 year old

Problem: A recent question in the homeschool forum asks for ideas for a boxed curriculum or other independent learning system for an independent 13 year old. Particulars in this situation is that mom is pregnant, the 13 year old is beyond the mothers level of math knowledge, and up until now, the mom has been preparing the curriculum. The 13 year old is also considering a special high school program and so he needs to be prepared to possibly enter high school in a year. A follow up question revealed that the son has a math tutor. Mom also wants … Continue reading →

Homeschooling Parents Do Not Need to Know Everything

When being challenged about homeschooling by people looking to convince me that I am doing the wrong thing, I am often quizzed about my depth of educational knowledge. They barrage me with questions like “do you know grammar well enough to teach it”, “what about algebra” and “do you really think you can teach calculus”. I generally answer all of these questions by saying “yes” and giving a big smile. My answer is technically the truth. Just because I am a homeschooling mother does not mean that I know everything. What I do know however is how to learn anything … Continue reading →

Extreme Homeschool Objections: Parents with Suspect Motivations

This series of homeschool objections was inspired by a vlog that very calmly and rationally mentioned a objections to homeschools by someone who also had many concerns with schools. His perfect school would be community based, but not home based. I have previously addressed the objection of qualifications. The next objection I would like to address are motivations to homeschool. Apparently, it is a problem that parents who give birth to, clothe, love, and nurse their children should not be able to pass down their values to their children. Individual values should be replaced with teaching kids to be considerate, … Continue reading →

Extreme Homeschool Objections: Parents with Suspect Motivations

This series of homeschool objections was inspired by a vlog that very calmly and rationally mentioned a objections to homeschools by someone who also had many concerns with schools. His perfect school would be community based, but not home based. I have previously addressed the objection of Qualifications. The next objection I would like to address are motivations to homeschool. Apparently, it is a problem that parents who give birth to, clothe, love, and nurse their children should not be able to pass down their values to their children. Individual values should be replaced with teaching kids to be considerate, … Continue reading →